Gabriele Chiave, Creative Director at Marcel Wanders studio

Gabriele Chiave has travelled all his life, but has been living in Amsterdam for 15 years. That wasn’t the plan, but we have no control over our destiny (or our hearts). He tells us about himself from his studio on the water, concisely and brilliantly. Born into a family of diplomats, he spent his childhood travelling around the world – France, Venezuela, Senegal, Italy and Syria, to name but a few. He inherited his love of design and furnishing from his parents, collectors of objects and furniture, both antique and modern. He studied at the IED European Institute of Design in Milan and his degree thesis was sui generis - a project for Emergency, founded by Gino Strada – a fabric backpack that could be turned into a field stretcher (subsequently produced   in Syria), useful for doctors for transporting the wounded and positioning them prior to triage. He then then began to collaborate with Alessi, creating products and running workshops for architects and designers. It was here that he met Marcel Wanders – a chat sufficed to ignite a spark between them. A year later, the Dutch designer invited him to go to Amsterdam. Wanders was looking for a designer with a more functional and industrial vision of design than the “artistic” approach more commonly found in Dutch practice. However, this paved the way for new, more poetic prospects and horizons, and for experimentation and diversity. The rest is history. Today, Gabriele Chiave is creative director of the studio, leading a team of 45 professionals with charisma and empathy. His life motto is Ad altiora, semper.